Cron Operator

The Cron operator is used to manage and set up cron jobs on the system.

Note: This operator is currently supported on Linux only and writes entries under /etc/cron.d/<name>.

Syntax 

- cron: <NAME> 
  schedule: <SCHEDULE>
  username: <USER>
  cmd: <COMMAND>
  onlyIf: <sub-command>
  notIf: <sub-command>
  exitIf: <sub-command>
  • cron: The name of the cron job; sanitized to alphanumeric for file naming.
  • schedule: The standard crontab schedule expression.
  • username: The user to run the cron job as (defaults to current user if omitted).
  • cmd: The command to execute.
  • onlyIf: See detailed docs here
  • notIf: See detailed docs here
  • exitIf: See detailed docs here

Templating: cmd, username, and conditionals support environment templating via RenderEnvString().

Example: 

- cron: foo
  schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  username: dave
  cmd: echo "hello world" > /tmp/output.txt

In this example, the Cron operator will create a cron job named foo that runs every 5 minutes and executes echo "hello world" > /tmp/output.txt as user dave.

Example 2 

- cron: foo
  schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  username: dave
  cmd: echo "hello world" > /tmp/output.txt
  onlyIf: /usr/bin/ls /tmp/output.txt

In the above example the Cron operator will only execute the cron job if the /tmp/output.txt exists.

Example 3 

- cron: foo
  schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  username: dave
  cmd: echo "hello world" > /tmp/output.txt
  notIf: /usr/bin/ls /tmp/output.txt

In the above example the Cron operator will only execute the cron job if the /tmp/output.txt does not exist.

In the next section, we’ll discuss the Git operator and how to use it in your manifest files.